Creating Topic Sentences.

1. Creating Topic Sentences.

2. Huh? What’s a topic sentence? • A topic sentence encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph. • Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they most often appear at the beginning.

3. Topic sentences continued • Topic sentences define the scope of the paragraph (what it will discuss). Write down the following topic sentence: • Many fast-food chains make their profits from adding a special ingredient called "forget sauce" to their foods. • If this sentence controls the paragraph that follows, then all sentences in the paragraph must relate in some way to fast food, profit, and "forget sauce."

4. Topic sentence= Many fast-food chains make their profits from adding a special ingredient called "forget sauce" to their foods. Does the following sentence “FIT” with the topic sentence? Made largely from edible oil products, this memory erasing condiment is never listed on the menu. • YES, because it is a description of the composition of "forget sauce."

5. Here is an example of another sentence that DOES fit with the topic sentence. • "Forget sauce" has a chemical property which causes temporary amnesia in consumers.

6. Which sentences do not fit with the topic sentence? WHY? Topic sentence= Many fast-food chains make their profits from adding a special ingredient called "forget sauce" to their foods. • After eating the food bereft of any nutritional value, and slathered with this sneaky sauce, most consumers tell themselves they should not eat it anymore. • Monkeys are really just little poop throwing people. • Homemade food that is high in nutritional value is better because it is fresher, and you can eat it whenever you want. 4. Within a short period the chemical in "forget sauce" takes effect, and consumers can be depended upon to return and repeat the process.

7. Choose the best topic sentence. • The first is the wear-and-tear hypothesis that suggests the body eventually succumbs to the environmental insults of life. The second is the notion that we have an internal clock which is genetically programmed to run down. Supporters of the wear-and-tear theory maintain that the very practice of breathing causes us to age because inhaled oxygen produces toxic by-products. Advocates of the internal clock theory believe that individual cells are told to stop dividing and thus eventually die. • There are two broad theories concerning what triggers a human's inevitable decline to death. • Some scientists believe that humans contain an "internal time clock" which forces them eventually to die. • We all must die some day. • My biology professor gave an interesting lecture Thursday.

8. Choose the best topic sentence • In Montreal, a flashing red traffic light instructs drivers to careen wildly through intersections heavily populated with pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. In contrast, an amber light in Calgary warns drivers to scream to a halt on the off chance that there might be a pedestrian within 500 meters. In my home town of New Brunswick, traffic lights do not seem to apply to tractors, all-terrain vehicles, or pickup trucks, which account for most vehicles on the road. In fact, if any Canadian familiar with these driving habits were dropped from a UFO anywhere in this vast land, he or she could orient him-or-herself simply by watching the traffic patterns for a few minutes. • People in Calgary are careful of pedestrians. • Although the interpretation of traffic signals may seem highly standardized, there are regional variations across this country. • People in Montreal drive faster than people in Alberta. • Canadians do not follow traffic signals properly.

9. Why did we do this? • Questions?